Heroes of the Storm

all of us here that play LoL have really just quit LoL and play this game as our moba instead because its much more appealing. none of us really liked the direction that they took LoL and picking up dota 2 is just too complicated/overwhelming. hots is really easy to pick up without all the annoying items/item builds as well as theres no need to get the last hit on a minion to be rewarded with gold, which is pretty nice because hots focuses on the PvP aspect of a moba rather than the PvE farming minions for better items. one of the reasons we all started disliking LoL is the game became very passive and no one ever fought/contested an objective, everyone was always too scared to actually fight each other which is pretty bad in a moba, but hots is the exact opposite since there is constant action and battling the whole game. another great thing is that the game can be snowballed into a relatively easy win BUT CAN ALSO have these ridiculous comebacks if played well, which LoL had almost 0 snowball potential and, ironically, 0 comeback potential. the last thing that stands out about hots is the hero strengths/meta-less game. in hots you can play however you want and for the most part whatever hero you want. other moba games usually have a set percentage of maybe 40% of the heroes are simply better (LoL is probably close to 20% of heroes which is terrible because you see the same 20 heroes every game when theres about 135 heroes), but hots has a better balancing design because there are no items to balance around - only heroes themselves. while some heroes in hots are certainly stronger, the bottom tier isnt that big of a gap than the top tier.

pat, me and you seem to have very opposite minds on our favorite heroes and even traits. i dislike playing all of those heroes except tychus (i still havent played abathur but he looks boring to me). in your tychus traits i think you overestimate your level 4 trait of getting only 15% on spray and pray. 15% of not much is not much. i like getting the "melting point" trait because it literally doubles the damage on your grenade which is pretty good for pushing. also, the level 7 trait i think first aid is really strong so you could try it out if you havent (i think your choice is good as well but i guess deciding between the 2 can be conditional). the level 16 trait is the hardest choice by far for tychus because he has 3 really great traits (shield, movespeed, increase knockback by 100%), you could really use all of them situationally so i wouldnt want to define a set build 100% of the time because i want to change when necessary.

favorite heroes:

Tanky: Muradin
Assassin: Zeratul/Illidan
Bruiser: Kerrigan/Sonya (im not very good at sonya and i dont think shes really good but shes fun)
Specialist: Sgt Hammer/Zagara
Ranged DPS: Valla/Tychus (vallas probably most OP hero in the game right now, more op than thrall (i havent had a problem with thrall but the majority say hes OP), and according to bacon valla is first pick in every game almost)
Support: Brightwing

my heroes that ive unlocked so far (9): kerrigan, muradin, li li, raynor, tychus, valla, ETC, malfurion, falstad
i currently have 5000 gold and considering buying illidan, but i might end up saving up for zeratul/murky/brightwing.

Hai i got into HOTS too!
My impressions
I love the constant PvP action like slayer and i also like the non stop battle of objectives. I think one of the smartest decisions Blizzard made with the game is to make hero kills worth a very small amount of experience. This in turns reduces rage, extreme snowballing and extreme feeding. It additionally keeps the game close, so you don't feel like your wasting your time 10 mins in after your enemies have 10 kill lead.
I really also liked how they kept the essence of the Wc3 models and abilities.

The thing i think really brings the game down is the heroes. First, there is a clear tier list in ranked, where you will get raged at for deviating. Right now, according to all these ranked try hards, you should only play tychus, valla, lili, abathur, uther, stitches, brightwing, muradin, zagara and nazeebo. I also have to admit those heroes are visibly stronger and with a few exceptions don't actually require additional skill to be mastered. Another thing i don't like with the heroes is many of their kits, maybe we were spoiled with LoL, but there is not epic Lee Sin, Yasuo, Jayce kind of heroes who require a shit ton of skill and rewards the player accordingly. The closest hero i would have to say is illidan, who in all fairness does require a lot of skill, but is currently pretty weak.
And jesus some of these heroe's kits are terrible( i mentionned this in one of my earlyer posts) like raynor or (OH GOD) Tyrande. I heard reworks are in the works for these heroes and the game is still in development, which gives me high hopes.

I absolutely love the game anyways, i can't even play league anymore, because it jsut too slow and often too one sided, so i really have high hopes for HOTS.

P.S i really hate the fucking funny skins, like roller skates nova or candy crush muradin and so on.

Kallock wrote:

pat, me and you seem to have very opposite minds on our favorite heroes and even traits. i dislike playing all of those heroes except tychus (i still havent played abathur but he looks boring to me).  in your tychus traits i think you overestimate your level 4 trait of getting only 15% on spray and pray. 15% of not much is not much. i like getting the "melting point" trait because it literally doubles the damage on your grenade which is pretty good for pushing.  also, the level 7 trait i think first aid is really strong so you could try it out if you havent (i think your choice is good as well but i guess deciding between the 2 can be conditional). the level 16 trait is the hardest choice by far for tychus because he has 3 really great traits (shield, movespeed, increase knockback by 100%), you could really use all of them situationally so i wouldnt want to define a set build 100% of the time because i want to change when necessary.

The 15% range increase makes it so you outrange auto attacks and every CC ability that will stop your overkill from working/cause you to die (stiches hook still hits you if you dont dash away) making you nearly untouchable while still dealing out massive dps, it also gives you that tiny bit of reach because when i dont get it people always seem to be just out of reach with it a lot of the time

Melting point doesnt double your damage against minions/structures, its actually more than double, its adds 150% to the base damage, which is huge, but tychus isnt a pusher so he doesnt need to deal that much dmg to structures/minions, his normal nade is more than enough to push with and vamp assault or spray n pray are more appropriate for his role
The only time i pick melting point is when im in solo que with a team full of hero DPS, which happens often so i probably get melting point more often than spray and pray, but i still prefer spray and pray over the others on that tier and i think melting point is a waste in a game with an actual pusher

With the range upgrades to your nade and overkill you dont need first aid and if theres a support in the game you dont need any healing at all like i was saying, the only time i would need healing with this build is when i get caught out of position or get greedy which means im taking too much damage for first aid to actually help most of the time since it heals so slow, thats why i take stoneskin at 16 sometimes, it does what first aid does (5% less), but is instant and when timed properly is far more effective than first aid ever is

And yeah, these are preferred builds, the ones i like using and want to go to by default, but i will change based on the situation, i just didnt go over every situation


Also we dont differ that much, i mean you dislike the ones i like but the only one i hate from the ones you listed is muradin
I dislike sonya, kerrigan and zeratul but thats mainly because those arent my play style, i think they are fun heroes if you enjoy that playstyle (i dislike melee assassins in general, i like illidan because hes basically a ranged assassin that uses his body as his attack since hes so maneuverable, if i had a melee assassin category on my list illidan would be there but i dont like melee assassins enough to consider any to be a favorite)

Muradin is very boring to me, most of the time people dont bother to attack you because you are so tanky that its a waste of time for them to even try so you basically just act as an annoyance until your stun hits where your team usually gets a kill but during team fights everyone around you dies since you will be (and should be) ignored so you arent even really a tank
Where as arthas deals enough damage to be a real threat that they cant just ignore and if they do ignore they get punished for it, he also has a stun too which is much more interesting to use to me (especially with the talent to boost it) and accomplishes the same thing and a constant slow which does a better job at stopping people from escaping than muradin can with his leap and stun since when he leaps forward to chase he leaves the team behind making the stun less effective since theres no one there to finish him, unless the stun is enough to kill them, in which case any skill shot would work so being muradin had no benefit over being any other hero with a skill shot

Arthas just feels like a much better and more fun muradin to me, all of his abilities do more or less the same things but just feel so much more effective and satisfying to use, only thing arthas doesnt have is an escape but you dont really need an escape as a tank

Bacon wrote:

The thing i think really brings the game down is the heroes. First, there is a clear tier list in ranked, where you will get raged at for deviating. Right now, according to all these ranked try hards, you should only play tychus, valla, lili, abathur, uther, stitches, brightwing, muradin, zagara and nazeebo. I also have to admit those heroes are visibly stronger and with a few exceptions don't actually require additional skill to be mastered.

Im pretty sure muradin isnt on that list, stitches is universally agreed to be best tank, but in 2nd people either say its arthas or chen, and 3rd being tyreal or arthas, muradin is 5th or below
http://heroesofthestorm.github.io/idream-tierlist
http://heroesofthestorm.github.io/zuna-tierlist

Also, yeah, this is another reason im in no rush to play ranked, tier lists will always happen in games like this though and people will always rage if you dont pick the things they want you to pick
The thing about tier lists is that they are just a list of a pros favorite heroes really, like look at rehgar on those 2 lists, on 1 he is 2nd tier, on the other he is last in supports, meaning zuna likes him and idream doesnt, has nothing to do with his performance really (same with li li)
Some people dont understand that though and will take their favorite pros word as fact since they are pro and obviously cant be wrong or biased and that type of person will obnoxiously stick to that "fact" and rage at those that disagree with what they believe to be fact

Bacon wrote:

Another thing i don't like with the heroes is many of their kits, maybe we were spoiled with LoL, but there is not epic Lee Sin, Yasuo, Jayce kind of heroes who require a shit ton of skill and rewards the player accordingly. The closest hero i would have to say is illidan, who in all fairness does require a lot of skill, but is currently pretty weak.
And jesus some of these heroe's kits are terrible( i mentionned this in one of my earlyer posts) like raynor or (OH GOD) Tyrande. I heard reworks are in the works for these heroes and the game is still in development, which gives me high hopes.

Im sure they will add the monk class from d3, which should play similar to Lee Sin or Yasuo (i havent played any of these heroes in LoL but i looked them up and they seem fairly similar to eachother, and similar to a monk class)
I dont really understand Jayce from reading it, is it just a stance change that changes your abilities, if thats the case they could add something like that with Garrosh or another warrior


And while talking about what they could add, i hope they add the necro class from d2 (specialist), deckard caine (support), sylvanas (dps specialist), and infested stukov (i dont know what hed be, i guess dps support)
Also the monk class from d3 would be cool too